MU Research Shows Consumers Pay More For 'Green' Clothing

COLUMBIA - Cotton clothing brands may start promoting their 'green' production thanks to a recent MU study. The benefits of this advertising could mean an extra boost of another green for those farmers and companies that have use these practices.

The research conducted found consumers are willing to pay up to five dollars, or 16.7 percent more, for a $30 cotton t-shirt produced sustainably in the U.S.

MU's Textile and Apparel Management Department conducted the research by surveying 500 people across the nation.

"People have good intentions at first, but then they see the price tag, and..."

The store caries a variety of recycled and organically grown cotton brands, but the cost of that clothing is about double the price of the conventionally procuded cotton clothing. Rewoe said most of the cotton that is used in the shirts are not made from cotton grown in the U.S.

Pamela Norum, one of the researchers of the study, said they also found consumers thought locally grown U.S. cotton more important than cotton produced with sustainable practices. And, having both of these factors in cotton clothing is very rarely seen.

The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing and Clothing, and Textiles Research Journal.